“Um, I’d be wrong to say that I haven’t thought about it. But one thing’s for sure: Montreal’s a great place to play. The start to a tremendous career — hopefully — has been great in Montreal, when you think that we’ve put together a team that’s been in the playoffs in three out of four years. I’ve been a big part of it. I’ve had individual success as well as team success. You look at last year, what we accomplished. And really, just setting the stage for a legacy there that, possibly, some players will never have in any organization. So I look at that first. But definitely, to think that, at some point, you may have the opportunity to play in your hometown? Yeah, it’s unique. But I’m not in a position to elaborate any more on that. All I can say is that I’ve heard a lot about it, I’ve thought about it — but I’m very happy where I am right now, and they’ve treated me so well.”

Michael Russo of the Star Tribune: The Wild and Nino Niederreiter’s agent have talked about a “bunch of different scenarios” on two to four year contracts. GM Chuck Fletcher has not spoken with Darcy Kuemper’s agent since July 5th.

“Darcy has great potential and played very well in stretches for us [last] season, but at the end of the day I think he’s played around 30 games in the NHL,” Fletcher said. “Usually this isn’t the time to fight for the big contract. We feel Darcy right now is trying to establish himself in the league, and once he does that it’ll be a little simpler to come up with terms.

“Our focus right now is on getting good deals with both [Kuemper and Niederreiter]. If we can get the right deal for the player and for the team, then it’ll give us a chance to be competitive. If we spend too much money on players before they’re ready to get the money they feel they deserve, it impacts a lot of other things down the road. If we can get a deal done tomorrow, great. If it takes even into training camp, it’s really not a big deal. We’ve got great depth, we got lots of players. We’re going to have to do what’s right financially to keep this thing going forward.”